inspiration – Page 3

close but no cigar

‘Front Desk Runaway’ is one of those songs that Diwas and I have been omitting from our set list. For some reason, something about it just didn’t sit well but we couldn’t pin point exactly what was wrong. So, we decided to avoid this song at our live shows, at least until we would have time to plop ourselves down and give it a good working out. As many of you songwriters know, some songs just don’t quite make the cut. We thought Front Desk Runaway would be one of our ‘close but no cigar’ songs.

Anyway, I’m not sure why we added it to our set last month at the Elephants for Autism Festival. We hadn’t changed anything since I first wrote it back in February, but I guess we both just missed it!

Turns out, we had a lot of fun playing it! So much fun that the song even creeped onto another set list, last Sunday’s show. Not to duplicate content, (I already posted the Front Desk Runaway from Elephants for Autism Festival), but here is a live video of the same song from our Chapter House show last Sunday. This neglected song just needs a little TLC!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dznKb82GTRE

Any other musicians out there with their own ‘close but no cigar’ songs??? Lets work on these babies!

Music

A couple of firsts

Well, the show Sunday was definitely a success. After playing gigs in a few other places these past few weeks, I was surprised to feel cozy and comfy in a room I was familiar with. It’s the first time I’ve had that feeling playing a live show. It felt good! I think our songs are getting more consistent too, now that we’ve been playing them out a lot. Where I used to think, ‘okay here comes the next part of the song, don’t mess up!’ (and then of course I immediately, loudly and confidently would strike a sour note that instantly resulted in some funny facial expressions, ‘what was that?!’), I am now feeling an ease for the first time, almost like some of the songs are becoming automatic. I can just sink into them and rock out. It’s a great feeling!

Some other firsts of the night include:

Inviting one of my good girlfriends up to play drums and sing some of her own original songs.

Having another friend play drums on a few covers, (Blur and Nirvana).

Playing with our openers, Erika and Doug, whose music was just enchanting. I am definitely booking another show with them soon!

So, I’m loving these new first time experiences, all thanks to music! The last first would be getting this funny picture, compliments of my dad 🙂

Live

Boogie Shakedown!

What a fun Memorial Day Weekend! Thanks to some very nice friends, we were able to play at a local outdoor party, an annual Boogie Shakedown. The air was a little chilly for late May, but clear skies let the heat of the sun keep us warm. Our set was a rough one, but a few musical kinks can’t stop us from having a blast while playing live 🙂 It’s just encouragement to keep practicing! Plus, we’re our own worst critics right?

There’s no place better than a sunny outdoor party with friends, food, and fuzzy beverages to enter new musical territory..

Live, Music

That feeling you get when you’re performing..

I really used to think that playing music at home in the privacy of my comfortable room was the best feeling ever. If you met me just two years ago, I probably wouldn’t even admit that I played music and not ever would I want to do it in front of anybody! But now we have a show coming up this Sunday at the Chapter House in Ithaca NY, and a cannot wait to play on stage. I love hearing our music wildly fill the air in a large dimly lit room and I love how fast the songs seem to fly by in front of a crowd. It makes me so happy when my friends come to support us and I literally feel butterflies when I meet new people who enjoy what they hear.

At some point between two years ago and now, I realized my fear of playing live stemmed from self-consciousness about the possibility of making mistakes, or making a fool out of myself in front of others. One day something hit me on the head and I thought, “Wait a minute, why should I deprive myself of a new experience because of fear of what others might think?!? That is the dumbest thing ever!” Today I believe sharing songs through live performance is one of the most rewarding facets of being a musician.

If any new musicians out there who haven’t yet played for an audience read this, I encourage you to go to an open mic or book a show! If you’re waiting for the right time or the perfect song or the best crowd, throw those notions out the window! That feeling you get when you’re performing will be worth it. 🙂

Lyrics

Writing Lyrics: Be a sponge!

So genius could strike at any moment, or a light bulb can suddenly flash on in your head, but don’t just wait for the ideas to come. Seek out inspiration, listen to everything around you, be a sponge and soak it all in! Sometimes inspiration can come from the funniest things. Like at work in meetings, on the bus talking to a stranger, waiting in line at the grocery store, the list goes on and on. I love it when my friends use silly expressions and cheesy metaphors because it gets my mind spinning with words. Be a sponge all day long and you’ll fall in love with the littlest things! 🙂

Lyrics

Writing Lryics: Accept the ideas that hit you!

Since diving into music making I’ve also become a bigger music fan. This could be indicated by the correlation between the decrease of netflix movies and increase of musician/producer interviews watched on my computer. (trying to keep my math skills fresh here!)

I enjoy watching interviews of my favorite artists explaining their creative processes behind songs and albums and I wanted to write a ‘Top 5 List’ type of blog entry to summarize the key writing methods I’ve observed or practiced.

The thing is, my list of 5 kind of ended up at something around 20! Can you really sum up such a dynamic and creative process in only 5 key points? I concluded that each lyric writing technique deserved to be its own entry 🙂 So here is the first tip:

Accept the ideas that hit you!

My husband will sometimes jump out of bed when we’re falling asleep, grab his guitar and the i-touch I got him for Christmas, and fumble around the room in the dark exclaiming “I’ve gotta record this idea before I forget it!” I used to laugh at him when this happened, but now that I’m working on music, I find myself doing the same thing…

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, explores this phenomenon in her 2009 TED talk, ‘Your Elusive Creative Genius.’ Is it some kind of genius that strikes us with noteworthy ideas when we are least expecting them? Well not exactly genius the way we define it today, but more like an ancient version of the word. Gilbert explains how the ancient Romans identified a genius as a divine spirit that mysteriously provided artists with rich content and inspiration. Instead of the artist embodying the genius, something that Gilbert believes puts unnecessary pressure on artists today, the Romans envisioned a separation of the artist and the mysterious creative spirit.

For anyone interested in watching Gilbert’s talk, here is a link:

Now I had watched this talk for the first time about a year ago, and one thing I took from it was to be prepared. Be prepared for your ideas to hit you at anytime! Be it pen and paper, or cool trendy smart phone, grab them and record them when they strike! Capture them before they vanish back into the mysterious world they came from, whether its a genius spirit or the intricacies of your subconscious 🙂